by cranpkunk
Deutschlandfunk.de has announced that researchers in Cologne have developed a test for Aicar, a nifty little drug that was found to decrease body fat, increase endurance, and blood flow to the heart.
long term side effects unknown, which is nice. the drug was reported as potentially being used at the 2009 Tour de France? journalists at the 2009 Tour were often remarking on how unnaturally thin several riders looked.
2+2=5? or what?
at least though Aicar made it to market, unlike GW1516, another drug that does much the same thing Aicar does.
however, GW1516 was found to cause cancer. This is from New Scientist:
“tests on rats showed that at all doses, the drug rapidly causes cancers in a multitude of organs, including the liver, bladder, stomach, skin, thyroid, tongue, testes, ovaries and womb.”
thing is, when you combine GW1516 with Aicar, as one study on test rats, they found that the effects were better when the drugs were combined than when used separately.
yup! a real Wonder Drug!
but, no one would be so completely stupid as to actually take it right?

Aicar is expensive though and there are other products on the market that do similar things. and with the statement from anti-doping specialist Mario Thevis, warning that there are up to 100 undetectable EPO variants out there on the market, well, why use Aicar?
still, as dopers have shown us time and again, they are generally a pretty dumb lot and no doubt there are others out there who are on Aicar.
with the news that there is now a test for this drug, and that the testers will be testing ‘Tour de France’ samples (unknown whether just this year, or back to 2009), well, that is interesting. Aicar though is more of a preparatory drug, one that would be used not mid-race, and it’s said to stay in the body for a relatively short time.
hopefully they’ll screen older out-of-competition tests too.
a stampede of positives to come? i doubt it, but expecting none would be far too trusting of two-wheeled human behaviour…